Aspirin improves survival in patients with gastrointestinal cancers, according to Dutch research presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress.

The researchers analysed data from 13,715 patients with gastrointestinal cancer, including those with malignancies in the colon (43 per cent of patients), rectum (26 per cent) or oesophagus (10 per cent). Median follow-up was 48.6 months, with 28 per cent of patients surviving for at least five years.

Overall survival was 46 per cent longer in patients who used aspirin following diagnosis, after adjusting for potential confounders such as sex, age, cancer stage, co-morbidities and treatment. The authors plan to analyse tumour biopsies to try to identify those patients who are most likely to benefit from taking aspirin after being diagnosed with GI cancer.

“Through studying the characteristics of tumours in patients where aspirin was beneficial, we should be able to identify patients who could profit from such treatment in the future,” lead author Martine Frouws from Leiden University Medical Centre remarked. An on-going Dutch multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled trial is investigating the effect of 80mg aspirin daily on overall survival of elderly patients with colon cancer.